Risky Techniques Improve Running

January 06, 1985|By Jon Van.

USING TECHNIQUES developed by Tibetan monks may be a good way for runners to improve their performance, although they risk damaging their bodies in the process, a University of Wisconsin sports psychologist has found. The idea involves dissociating oneself from the pain of long-distance running. Bill Morgan, who has studied runners and running, finds that many runners use this technique, mentally writing letters to friends, for example, as they run marathons. Tibetan monks called mahetangs reportedly could run 300 miles in 30 hours in part because they developed a visual fix on a distant object, placing their locomotion in synchronism with their breathing and repeating a sacred phrase or syllable to themselves as they ran. But using a similar strategy in his lab, Morgan reports improvements of 20 and 30 percent in the athletic performances of subjects. There are risks in this technique. ``There are times when your body, through pain, is telling you that you should stop or slow down or quit. Through dissociation,`` Morgan said, ``you`re able to transcend that state. When you do that, you run the risk of going into heat stress, heat exhaustion or suffering a stress fracture without knowing it.`` One fellow using dissociation ran 11 miles in order to finish his marathon after being shot in the head with a bullet, Morgan said.